Chapter 8

THE WEATHER WAS FAR TOO WARM FOR winter. Probably it would rain. A cloud of tiny winged insects whirled round and round a tree. From where Moon Scent stood it looked as if the treetop were smoking.
Somebody was beating a small gong from one end of the village to the other, shouting, "A meeting! Go to the Village Public Office for the meeting! Everybody has to go!"
Moon Scent had to take the child with her since there would be nobody at home. Leading Beckon by the hand, she went next door to pick up Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got. Gold Root went by himself. On such occasions the men and women always went separately. At the meeting they would also be grouped by themselves although there really was no segregation rule.
The Village Public Office had formerly been the Temple of the Militant Sage. Meetings took place in the great stone-paved courtyard facing the main hall. The villagers pushed about, shouting across at their acquaint-ances and squinting in the afternoon sunlight. When the Chairman of the Farmers' Association slapped a piece of bamboo on the table, a hush fell upon the gathering and one could hear cocks crowing dreamily in the distance before he cleared his throat and started speaking.
Moon Scent was not yet used to those meetings, which seemed to take more of her time than they had in the city. She was always the last to raise her hand when the time came for everybody to hold up his hand. The women would titter a little while doing it and the men in almost equal shyness carefully kept their eyes front, with a half-smile and a look that said: 'Maybe this is simply a ritual. But silly as it seems, it is the thing to do."
Then Gold Root stood up at the back and said, "I move that we ask Comrade Wong to tell us his ideas." The Chairman of the Farmers' Association started to clap and after a while the people caught on and all joined in. Moon Scent's heart beat fast. Nobody clapped when others stood up to speak, but as soon as Gold Root opened his mouth they all applauded. But should she do the same? She would be the village laughingstock-a wife clapping at her own husband. But, on the other hand, she was afraid to be the only dissenter. She was still in the agony of indecision when the clapping stopped and Comrade Wong walked up the stone steps and addressed the crowd.
He made a very long speech about Cultural Entertain-ment Activities, more to impress Ku than for the edifica-tion of the villagers. It was already getting dark when he introduced Ku to them and asked him to give a talk on the same subject. The audience had stood on their feet so long by this time that even their arms ached from hanging down at their sides.
Ku mercifully made his speech short. After the meet-ing broke up they practiced the Dance of the Rice-Sprout Song outside the temple. Lanterns and torches cast a flickering light on the red walls. The dancers banged the gongs and clashed their cymbals.
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CHONG! CHONG! CHI-CHONG CHI! CHONG! CHONG! CHI-CHONG CHI!"
The young men, Gold Root among them, bound yel-low kerchiefs tight on their heads, pulling up the corners of their eyes and eyebrows, turning them into warlike and fearsome strangers. They started dancing, swinging their arms as they advanced and retreated. The others looked on, smiling. But a heaving and pushing began among the spectators, and more and more people were pushed out, under protest, to join the row of dancers.
A woman whose turn it was to be victimized dragged Moon Scent with her, shouting, "You come, too, Sister-in-Law Gold Root." Moon Scent giggled and put up a struggle but was finally induced to stand in line. She had never danced and her ancestors had not danced for more than a thousand years in this part of the country. She felt ridiculous even if she had seen schoolgirls and factory girls prancing the same dance on the street in Shanghai and conceded that it must be a stylish thing to do.
Finally the torches were extinguished and the lanterns walked off with their owners. Everybody went home. Moon Scent felt the sweat drip cold inside her wadded jacket and was so weak from fatigue and lack of supper that she felt lightheaded. She had always liked crowds. She walked beside Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got, holding Beckon by the hand. In the dark she could hear Gold Root's voice talking to other men some distance away. It gave her a comforting and glad sense of possession to hear his voice even if she couldn't see him.
The moon was behind the clouds. Layers of clouds formed a rocky cave with an amber glow at the rim. Then it started to drizzle. The moon was still there, a fairy light in the amber cave. But before they reached home it was raining hard and they had to run for shelter.
Gold Root had come back ahead of her. The lamp still smoked a bit from just having been lit.
"You could have helped me to carry Beckon," Moon Scent complained. "Heavy as a big rock. I'm all out of breath."
"I did not see you."
She had scarcely sat down when somebody was pound-ing the door from outside.
"Who is it?" Gold Root went up to the door and shouted above the clatter of the rain on the roof.
It was Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got, coming to bor-row a basin or an earthen jar. "The roof is leaking in Comrade Ku's room," she said. 'We don't have enough containers to hold the water. All his things are getting wet."
Moon Scent helped her to lug a big earthen jar to her place and saw the state of confusion things were in. Ku's belongings were all stacked in Big Aunt's room and the family were discussing sleeping arrangements. Moon. Scent told Gold Root what was wrong when she came back, and Gold Root went over to ask Comrade Ku to stay the night with them. The old couple frowned and grinned at the same time, trying not to look overjoyed.
"All right then," Big Aunt said reluctantly. "He might stay with you for a few days while we repair our roof. But we'll fix it as quickly as possible."
But still Big Aunt dared not pass Ku on to her nephew without consulting Comrade Wong. Big Uncle put on his hobnail boots, and with his lantern and umbrella went out in the downpour to see Comrade Wong at his quarters in the temple. Having obtained Wong's consent, they started moving the luggage. Moon Scent swept the room formerly occupied by Gold Flower. Big Aunt helped to spread out Ku's bedding, her widowed daugh-ter-in-law being ineligible for such intimate service. The whole family came over to see that he was well settled. Ku was just as happy as they were at being moved and just as anxious not to show it. Beckon circled around his possessions, putting out her hand to touch everything. She was bold because Ku had always been specially nice to her out of all the children.
At last Big Uncle and Big Aunt got up to go, with Sister-in-Law Gold Have Got holding their umbrella for them. They cursed and laughed at the rain. Already their voices were louder, they even coughed more loudly with their guest gone. It was now Gold Root and his wife's turn to whisper. Ku could hear them talking softly in the next room as if they had a sick man with them. Now and then the child's voice piped up, shrill and uninhibited.
He sat on the bed facing the oil lamp, and was sud-denly filled with longing for his own home and wife. He moved the tubular bamboo lampstand farther away to make room on the table. Then he spread out his letter paper and wrote to his wife. He told her how he had moved house tonight to escape from the leaky roof, how affectionate the farmers were, how touching their con-cern. He spoke of his work in the Winter School and reported the talk he gave this evening on Cultural En-tertainment Activities.
The wind was one long level howl on the horizon. The bamboo partition rattled loudly. In the other half of the room, partitioned off, Big Uncle's pig grunted un-easily, because of the noise of the wind and rain and because it was not used to the lamplight that leaked through, falling in long stripes across the floor.
Ku stopped writing to warm his numb fingers at the small flame of the lamp. The door creaked and the flame flickered. He turned and saw Moon Scent come in smil-ing. She was beautiful in the lamplight, like the fairy mistress stepping out of a book for the scholar in an old story by P'u Sung-ling.
"Not sleeping yet, Comrade Ku?" she said. She brought a warming basket with live charcoal covered with ashes and tucked it into his bed. Before it had always been Big Aunt who brought him the basket every night. It was her idea at the beginning. He protested to no avail and afterward learned to appreciate it as the nights were very chilly. Big Aunt must have told Moon Scent just now that he required one every night. He was angry with the old woman for being so damn solicitous. Nobody around here ever made use of those baskets except the old and infirm. He did not mind it so much when Big Aunt brought it to his bed, but with Moon Scent it was different. It made him feel like such an old woman.
"This is not necessary. Really!" he murmured.
She smiled at him. "No trouble at all." And she was gone.
The basket made a big, ungainly hump at the foot of the bed. He sat down disconsolately on the bed and turned to gaze at it. He had never been so afraid of the cold as this winter. It must be due to the lack of nourish-ment. The light was burning low as he picked up his pen to finish his letter. Peevishly he poked at the wick with a strip of bamboo and the light went out altogether. He could not find his matchbox in the dark. It must have been put away somewhere when he was moving house.
There was nothing left to do but to go to bed. The rain drummed on. Hunger kept him awake and the thought of Moon Scent bothered him. What would she look like next summer when she could take off this ungainly padded uniform? He turned and tossed so much that he worried about upsetting the basket, scorching his blanket, and perhaps starting a fire.
Toward dawn he made a resolution. The next day, when the rain had stopped, he walked to town to mail his letter and eat in the restaurant as usual. But before he came back he bought some provisions to take home with him—a thing he had never done before. He got a quantity of dried dates and tea-leaf eggs—eggs hard-boiled with tea leaves and spices. He felt very guilty about it, since he was supposed to live with the farmers and eat what they ate.
That night, when he had eaten the eggs and the red dates, he carefully wrapped up the shells and date seeds in a piece of paper. In the morning he went out for a walk. It was funny how the country was such a large, disheveled sort of place and yet it was so difficult to dispose of garbage of this sort. He had to go far out into the hills and scatter the scraps in the long grass.
Moon Scent was washing his socks and handkerchiefs for him. In late afternoon, when they were dry, she folded them up neatly and took them to his room, perhaps meaning to stay and chat for a while. She was not above flirting with this city man a little, though she would never admit that to herself.
It was already dark in his room but the lamp was not yet lit. As she stood in the doorway, she did not at first perceive that he was munching a tea-leaf egg. When she realized it, she was as embarrassed as he was.
"Your socks are dry, Comrade Ku." She smiled at him hastily as she laid them at the foot of his bed and retreated with as natural an air as possible.
At suppertime Ku brought the two remaining eggs to the table and with some awkwardness offered to share them with the family. He bought them in town the other day and had forgotten all about them, he said. He put up such a poor performance, that he was much vexed with himself. But it was difficult to behave naturally about a thing like food when it aroused the lowest and most sav-age instincts in all of them and had become the object of quite indecent cravings.
Moon Scent made her refusal with a set smile. Gold Root grabbed hold of his arms to ward off the eggs. But finally they had to give in so as not to be rude. Through-out supper they talked even less than usual, although Gold Root felt that he had to comment politely. "A good egg. Yes-a good egg." And afterward there was a per-ceptible coldness in their attitude toward their guest.
After that Moon Scent seldom came into Ku's room. And whenever she did, she always warned him of her approach by talking loudly to someone else. This assump-tion that he might be eating any time of the day was outrageous and somehow humiliating.
Apparently Beckon had also been forbidden to enter his room. He never actually saw Beckon peeping at him but her mother probably caught her at it more than once. All of a sudden the air would be loud with the sound of scolding and chastisement and the child's crying.
He made frequent trips to town now, always on some pretext. He brought home dates, rock-hard sesame cakes six inches in diameter, and small sesame cakes called ((gold-coin cakes"—he had eaten those before but had never noticed how terribly crunchy they were. This fur-tive eating with his back to the door was, he felt, a de-grading experience. But it did quiet his hunger and mental turmoil so that he was able to get on with his writing.
One afternoon he was sunning his back in the court-yard working on the story of the dam. Moon Scent was sitting under the eaves doing her mending. The child stood close by her side. Ku was absorbed in his work, and it was some time before he noticed the goings on over there. The child, her face set and stubborn, was rubbing hard against her mother, so hard that Moon Scent, seem-ingly oblivious of her, swayed and jolted a bit with her movements. And the child mumbled under her breath and made small plaintive noises through her nose. Now and then she gave a despairing tug to her mother's jacket.
"What are you whining at?" Moon Scent suddenly exploded, thrusting her off. "What is it you want from me, you little pest? Every day like this, whether there are people around or not. Shameless! A born beggar! Every day-every day like this! I don't know what I owed you in my last life. Why don't you die? Why don't you die, you worthless little pest!"
The child burst out crying, drawing her two sleeves alternately over her streaming eyes. Moon Scent, who never left off working at her mending, went on saying the same things over and over again, without looking at the child. And then, just when it appeared as if her anger was being gradually worked off, a fresh spurt of rage took hold of her. With a deliberate movement she put down her mending. She was careful to stitch the needle on the cloth so as not to lose it. The child knew what was com-ing. She ran around in circles wringing her hands, gibber-ing with terror. Her wizened little face seemed strangely old, and there was something primeval in her exagger-ated, theatrical exhibition of horror and distress. Ku looked on aghast. For a moment he even felt the impulse of instant flight, as if he himself were faced with an enemy before whose might he was utterly powerless.
The blows fell. Beckon shrieked with each slap.
"All right, all right, Sister-in-Law Gold Root!" Ku came forward and tried to separate them. "Stop it-that's enough! You can't expect the little girl to act like a grownup. Now, let her go!"
She ignored him completely. If anything, his interven-tion only served to goad her on. When she finally finished with the child, she returned to her mending. Beckon stood blubbering in the middle of the courtyard.
"Wipe your nose," shouted Moon Scent.
Ku went back to his seat. Presently the sun went down and he returned to his room, taking the chair with him. Moon Scent never once glanced in his direction.
The child was very quiet and timid that evening. After she went to sleep, when Moon Scent was sitting by the side of the bed doing her sewing, she felt a twinge of remorse.
She suddenly said to Gold Root, "When the New Year comes, we must buy some pork and cook something for Beckon."
So she still had money left, thought Gold Root. She did not lend it all to her mother. He despised himself for thinking that, as if he was spying on her, but he could not help it.
Then she regretted what she had said and turned around to scan the face of the sleeping child. "If she heard me there would be no end of trouble." She giggled with a guilty air. But after a while she again said mus-ingly, "All we need is a little pork fat. With a little pork fat we can make rice-flour balls with bean-paste stuffing. Children like sweet things.